


Beyond Life's Edge

by youbecamemyhabit



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Bad Flirting, Bittersweet, Demons, End of the World, M/M, Minor Violence, Roommates, Soulmates, Supernatural Elements, changki, kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-11-10 16:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youbecamemyhabit/pseuds/youbecamemyhabit
Summary: Collection of Halloween-themed one shots from various pairings for the Spooky Bingo - MX edition.





	1. changki

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!! i don't know how many chapters this will have but i'll try my best with this bingo. i love me some supernatural stuff and now i also have the opportunity to write ships i never did before!
> 
> enjoy (or not)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> changki + monsters under the bed

**NIGHTMARE HUNTER**

“So… you’re like a _Ghostbuster_?”

The guy, wearing all leather and going through his things on a duffel bag on his couch, suddenly came to a halt and looked up at Kihyun with a gaze so sharp that could’ve killed him if lasers came out of it.

“Do I look like one, Yoo Kihyun-ssi?” He replied, with a hoarse tone.

Ten minutes earlier, Kihyun’s wait came to an end when, at his doorstep, appeared a man with cherry red hair and a cocky attitude that didn’t please Kihyun at all. Without even a proper greeting, the guy known as “Kyun” made his own way inside Kihyun’s apartment.

“No…” Kihyun almost murmured, but his voice grew louder as he formed a proper thought. “It’s just that in the card you gave to Minhyuk there was just your name and number written.”

“I’m a hunter.” Kyun explained, at the same time he pulled a huge knife out of his duffel bag.

Not the right move to calm Kihyun’s nerves; instinctively, he took a step backwards.

The other man seemed to have sensed his anxiety and put the knife down.

“Don’t worry.” The red-haired apologized, with a cheeky smile on his face. “I don’t kill humans. At least not the alive ones.”

“Can you really solve this?” Now taking several steps forward, Kihyun’s initial worries came back to him. “My roommate didn’t have a good night of sleep in months… he gave up on trying and went to his boyfriend’s last week.”

Bending his torso forward, Kyun grabbed a notebook and pen out of his bag and started taking notes.

“What’s his name?”

“Hoseok. Shin Hoseok.”

“Age?”

“27.”

“Is he attractive?”

“Wait.” Kihyun frowned. “How is that important—”

Kyun simply shrugged.

“Is he?”

“…Yes? I guess…”

“Good for you. Hot people get a discount. How long have him been dealing with his creature?”

Kihyun wanted to laugh. Of course he didn’t, but to someone as skeptic as he had always been his entire life, one could imagine how preposterous was a question like that.

Instead, he kept playing the game.

“3 months, more or less.”

“Have you seen it?” Kyun lifted his gaze to meet eyes with him. “The monster.”

“Me? Uh, no. It’s und—I mean, there’s nothing there when I look.” That’s when Kihyun realized how exhausted his body was; he had been up since five in the morning running errands and going to boring ass lectures. It was now close to 8:00 p.m. and he hadn’t even eaten. “To be honest, uh, I don’t really know how—why this—I mean, I never heard—”

“What did your friend see, hear or smell?” The man kept writing down stuff on his notebook, sparing no glance at Kihyun. “Need to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Hoseok hyung said when he could feel this _presence_, there was always this smell of… rain. You know, when it’s just about to rain. It got worse when it actually rained. He didn’t see or hear anything, just… felt it.”

“Alright!” Kyun suddenly closed his notebook, weirdly grinning at him. Kihyun was sure that that man’s brain was wired differently from other people. “Where is the bedroom?”

“Down the hallway, last door.”

“Stay here.” The man gestured at him to stay put, then grabbed his duffel bag.

Of course Kihyun wouldn’t let that man alone in his apartment doing God knows what in his hyung’s personal space.

“I’m coming with you.”

Instead of arguing about his safety, Kyun just shrugged and flashed him a smile that read _“suit yourself”_ way too well for him to pick up so quickly on someone he had known for less than half hour.

Once Kihyun reached Hoseok’s doorstep, he watched the man turn the bedroom’s light on and crouch down to search blindly inside his bag. A moment later, Kyun pulled out something out of Kihyun’s sight.

Then, almost comedic, Kyun put what now was clearly a yellow silk paper between his index and middle finger and shot it under Hoseok’s bed.

“Come out.” The red-haired man ordered, to an empty room. “Come out now and I promise I’ll be quick.”

“Are you serious?” Kihyun scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “All you do is tell it to come out? I’m not paying you.”

Kyun turned around only to raise a brow at him and defend himself.

“You’d be surprised how many times this worked.”

After a few minutes of silence, it was clear that whatever was under there — if it even existed such thing — wasn’t going to budge so easily.

“Come on, man.” Kyun whined, stomping heavily like a child. “I want to make a move.”

From the entrance, with arms crossed over his chest, Kihyun questioned him.

“What move?”

“On you.” The man didn’t even turn to face him, way too nonchalant for a stranger. “Shit, I’ve ran out rock salt. At least my holy water is—”

“Wait, what?”

Still mumbling to himself, Kyun finally turned to Kihyun, but anything that could’ve been said between them was interrupted by a booming thunder that had Kihyun almost jumping out of his own skin.

Suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped drastically.

Kyun’s eyes widened and for the first time, he could see fright in the man’s eyes.

“KIHYUN, RUN!”

A shiver went down Kihyun’s spine as his breath got caught in his throat. What the fuck was happening? He had no idea, nor a fast reflex to step away as soon as he heard a beastly growl arise in the room; Kihyun hated that he just froze, he hated that he looked weak.

But every limb of his body refused to move even though lightbulbs exploded right above his head, even though Hoseok’s bed was somehow lifted midair and thrown in his direction.

All he felt was the sudden bump of something — someone — heavy enough to knock him down.

It was Kyun who saved him from being murdered by that flying bed, tackling him to the ground while it trembled beneath them.

“NOT THIS ONE!” Kyun yelled at the dark room, on top of him. “I LIKE THIS ONE!”

That entire scenario was so ridiculous to Kihyun’s mind that he couldn’t snap out it until Kyun started lightly slapping him in the face.

“Once I get up, run. Do you hear me? Run, Kihyun!”

Almost catatonically, he nodded and propped himself on his elbows to push his body up. Kyun, still kind of hovering above Kihyun, got on his feet as soon as the next unholy snarl emerge in front of him, but the view of the thing making such noise was blocked by Hoseok’s bed.

Then Kihyun ran, tumbling along the way with only the walls of his apartment to support his body; he didn’t look back, but before he left, Kihyun saw Kyun climbing the side of Hoseok’s bed, now thrown against the entrance, in that thing’s direction.

A mad man, Kihyun concluded. Whatever was in that room was not of this world, so who the hell would willingly venture themselves into that bedroom? He’d rather move out. God, why didn’t they move out? Because Hoseok was a dumb and tenacious man that didn’t want to give up what he called a “perfect apartment”, full of light during the day, and with a beautiful view to the city once the sun began to set in the horizon.

Fuck, that wasn’t worth it dying.

When Kihyun was about to reach the end of the hallway that led to the living room, he heard Kyun’s voice again.

“GET DOWN!”

And so his body did, way before his mind could realize what was happening.

Kihyun could almost grasp when the air above his head became so thin he could barely breathe, and something leapt over him. He got up quickly and turned around to see what it was, but was greeted with a knife being thrown at the wall behind him, dangerously close to his face.

“Did you just throw a knife at _me_?” He said, with all the indignation he was allowed to.

Instead of trying an apology, Kyun, who ran in his direction, simply grabbed the knife that got stuck on his wall and left Kihyun with a quick question before chasing that — whatever it was.

“Are you free this Friday?”

Left alone in-between the hallway and the living room, Kihyun frowned alone.

“What?”

“Saturday is good too!” Kyun told him, raising his voice a little while another growl gave Kihyun deadly goosebumps.

It only got worse when Kihyun actually saw the thing — a big, furry dog thrice the size of the largest one he had ever seen, with eyes as red as blood, glowing in the now dimmed ambience, since that dipshit of monster made a lightbulb explode.

_How the—Why—Fuck, that was under Hoseok’s bed? _

If that thing had come out when Kyun wasn’t around, Hoseok and him would be dead for sure.

Kihyun suddenly felt a bit safer with that crazy stranger trying to knife down a demonic dog in his living room.

“Bad dog! Bad dog!” Kyun shouted, standing on his couch with a knife on each hand. “Kihyun! Friday or Saturday!”

“Stop flirting—stop doing that when—”

Unintimidated by the growl of that beast that showed his teeth with pride in the terror it caused, Kyun jumped in the dog’s direction with both knives held high above his head, slashing the demonic thing in the belly as he slid under the dog; seconds later, Kyun was now standing behind the creature.

In what could’ve been the coolest thing Kihyun had ever seen someone make, Kyun flipped his knives in the air and quickly caught them midair only to stab the beast in the back; it howled in pain, and Kihyun got goosebumps.

“Pasta or seafood?” The man asked, huffing as he hopped on the dog’s back to stick the knives even deeper.

Kihyun caught himself replying without thinking and frowned at himself.

“I don’t eat seafood.”

“So you’re in?” The man almost fell of his position as the demonic thing tried to fight back.

“I don’t know! We just met! I don’t even know how old are you and—”

“C’mon, I’m trying to impress you here. I’m 24, by the way.”

“Just kill this thing already!” Kihyun begged, for he couldn’t hear that beast growling anymore. “I’m impressed, kill it!”

“Actually…” Kyun stirred a bit on the dog’s back, trying to blow his bangs out of his face. “This is a black shuck. It’s a ghost dog, so it’s already dead.”

“Then get rid of it! Do your thing!”

“Are we up for this Friday?”

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill you!”

Kyun laughed. A genuine, legit laugh that almost made him look a bit boyish, like a brat that had achieved their purpose.

Kihyun couldn’t stand his ass.

But before he could complain again, Kyun pulled one of the knives off the dog’s back and brought it closer to his mouth, whispering something against it that Kihyun had no idea in what language that even was.

Abruptly, symbols carved in the knife began to glow a bright light and Kyun was as dexterous as one could be by stabbing the dog on the head, causing it to vanish with a loud growl that echoed through his apartment and God knows where else. Kihyun was sure he’d get at least a few noise complaints from his neighbors.

“That’s…” Kihyun felt like he was holding his breath that entire time, now finally letting out a heavy sigh. “Insane. That… all of that.”

“I call it Thursday.” The man shrugged, dropping his knives over the coffee table.

“You do _you_.”

“I could do you _too_.” He said, with a knowing smirk. “So, Friday?”

“First things first.” Kihyun crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring how his hands trembled. “How the hell that was living under hyung’s bed?”

“Ah, Kihyun.” He clicked his tongue, rounding the coffee table to move in the other man’s direction. “Don’t tell me you don’t know about monsters under the bed. That’s real. I mean, not all beds have monsters under it, but it’s common. They usually drain energy from the human during the night, so they get too weak to try to get rid of it. Or even believe they exist. My sensei used to say that you have the choice to not believe in monsters, but they do believe in you. So, pasta, hyung?”

He was about to respond with indignation about that entire night when he felt a spasm in the back of his neck and reach for it; his hand felt something slick and immediately knew it was blood. Shit, he was bleeding.

“I feel… not good.”

“Oh, fuck.” Kyun almost flew in his direction, hands quickly brushing against his skin. “He scratched you. I told you to run!”

“Well I’m sorry if I’m not fast enough after almost dying!”

“Wait…” Something in the way he stared at Kihyun’s neck gave the latter the creeps. “It’s gone. It… It just… healed? On its own?”

“Oh…”

“Yoo Kihyun-ssi…” Kyun tilted his head, but kept his gaze directed to him. “What are you?”

So the moment Kihyun feared the most finally came.

He had been so careful throughout his entire life… why did he let his guard down around a stranger? Why he even mentioned the blood to that man?

He was afraid he’d get the look. The look people offer to people who weren’t normal, to people who didn’t fit in.

Somehow, nothing like this was in Kyun’s eyes. That was scarier than anything.

“I’m—nothing it’s nothing—” His feet instinctively moved backwards, putting more distant between them until he was against a wall. “I—It wasn’t scratched, it just—”

“Calm down. I’m not here to judge you. Does anybody know?”

“No.” Even though the panic that struck him from head to toe, Kihyun replied. “Just my parents.”

Kyun nodded, leaning one shoulder against the wall.

“Do you want to know why you are like this?” He asked.

“What?”

“You just saw me slaying a demon dog. I know my supernatural stuff.”

Sighing, Kihyun remembered all the times his mother and father advised him to never tell anyone about his oddity because of the fear of them turning Kihyun into a pariah. Now, the first person to ever know about it was actually offering him some kind of enlightenment.

“I’m not a demon—”

“I know.” Kyun sheepishly smiled. “You’re cute.”

Kihyun might’ve or might’ve not blushed a little bit in that absurd situation.

“Shut up, boy.”

“So…” Giggling, the younger man stretched his arm in Kihyun’s direction and offered his hand. “Are you coming?”

Whatever got into Kihyun was not of his usual self, but, in some way, he knew that he had reached a point from where he couldn’t come back from anymore.

So, mustering all the courage in his body, Kihyun grabbed his hand. He was no longer hostage of his fear, nor felt like he didn’t want to be someone else around Kyun.

“This is not a date.” He warned the man, who only cackled at him as he pulled Kihyun closer on his way to the door, off to God knows where.

“This is _totally_ a date.”


	2. hyungwonho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hyungwonho + celestial beings

**FOREVER IS A LONG TIME**

The world didn’t end in ice or fire, like some proposed.

It ended with a tear.

Crossing thousands of kilometers of clouds that separated the mortals from the eternal ichor-filled land, that tiny drop hit the earth with the power of a sky stone. The curls in the raven-haired god’s forehead flew against the high winds and the atmosphere got a little bit darker, misty; the rock in which Hyungwon held himself against threatened to damage his blue robe, but he didn’t care. Oh, how he didn’t care.

How to walk away from such destruction? How to turn a blind eye, how to keep the hand behind one’s back and not to extend it to offer help?

“You just do, darling.”

Behind him stood his other half; a soulmate, as the mortals commonly said. Turning around, he was met with the golden essence of his partner’s being — between the opening of his white robe, his muscular chest shined in the sunlight reserved only for the pantheon’s holy soil.

“Their lives are coming to an end, Hoseok.” His voice was small, but it resonated well across the hill, even beyond the edge of the realm.

The blond god flashed a sad smile at him.

“It is their fate, my love. Not even us can go against the flow of birth and death.”

Hyungwon crawled his way away from the rock at the edge of the portal that allowed the gods in their pantheon to glance at human life, undisturbed by how a piece of his blue robe was being ripped apart.

“I feel them.” The raven-haired cried, tears falling off his holy face, one that could’ve bring empires to fall on their knees. “I feel them weeping, shouting, begging for help. It’s their doomsday. The end of their mortal race as them, and we, know it.”

Crouching down next to his lover, Hoseok brought gently his hand to Hyungwon’s face, wiping the tears off of his face. The blond never let himself forget of the blood on his hands, but never allowed it get between him and the one he loved.

“They caused this.” He told Hyungwon, fully sitting on the ground beside him. “They always do. What kind of guilt belong to us? Oh, to be mortal is to be grasped by the raw essence of living, one that us might not understand for a good reason.”

“And that is…”

Hoseok smiled again.

“They come and go, but we stay behind. We are worshipped by some, demonized by others… we cannot die, darling, and it comes with a cost.”

“We are gods.” Hyungwon started, placing his hand over the one that was settled on his face. “We should be able to help.”

“You know we’ve tried it before. You know that whatever comes from mortals and gods coming together is not good. Their realm is littered by ruins that buried even the noblest of them all.”

Inside his chest, his heart burned with the sorrow that emanated from the mortals’ souls; Hyungwon’s deeply-rooted empathy played against him like never before as he gazed at the infinite horizon of the pantheon’s land and wondered about the billions of souls arriving in the underworld in that exact moment.

“They will be judged fairly.” Hoseok read his thought, just like Hyungwon could hear his’, filled with worry.

“Not all of them perished yet.”

All of a sudden, the blond god got on his feet.

“I feared this day more than anything.” He told Hyungwon, whose hands slid against the soil to help him get up too. “The triplets read our fortune once we were birthed, remember?”

In the mental link they shared, the two of them reminisced a prophecy that they wouldn’t believe it would come true for many eons, but, slowly, it would come to make sense.

It made sense right in that moment, and that broke Hyungwon’s heart.

“They don’t deserve it. You.” His lover claimed, close to tearing up.

Hyungwon moved smoothly, as the cool breeze moved his curls away from his face, and put his arms around Hoseok’s neck.

“I can’t just watch it anymore.” The raven-haired muttered, running his fingers through his soulmate’s golden locks.

Hoseok looked up at him, with tears rolling down his face. No one could go against the will of a god, not even another one.

“I can’t ask you to wait for me.” Hyungwon started, drawing his arms back to his sides.

“What else am I supposed to do?” The god’s murmur thundered its way into his heart. “You are my beginning and my end, part of my soul. May it be damned everyone who ever prayed to take you away from me.”

Hyungwon’s own tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, my love.”

With a heavy sigh, the raven-haired god started to follow his partner as they walked in silence down the green hill and crossed a small bridge over an endless, emerald lake that filled his senses with a minty yet sour taste and smell; the sunlight danced across Hyungwon’s face, but was still too afraid to linger for much longer.

It had no warmth at all, in all honesty. The god had never felt his chest so heavy as he walked over the kisses of falling leaves on the ground — heavier than all that was inside of him, heavier than the skies that fell over the mortals’ heads.

Where was the fairness that was supposed to exist in the universe and not drive him insane to the point of where he was at the moment, in front of the Golden Gates of the City?

“I wish I could go with you.” Hoseok’s tiny voice shattered his heart. “Anywhere, with you.”

“You don’t believe in it.” The taller man reached out to grab his hand, but stopped midway. “In them. This is my labor.”

“I can’t understand you.” His partner admitted, eyes glinting with more tears threatening to fall. “And I think you will fail. But I can’t and won’t ask you to stay.”

Hyungwon understood. Who were they to stand against what already happened? Their love wasn’t to be always seized at the bottom of riverbanks, on thick branches of trees older than the oldest of the gods, under a curtain of constellations that witnessed it all, from very beginning. Since day one, Hyungwon knew that he was going to be tested and tried his best to deal with it, but putting up a fight in his head was easier than in reality — then it came, that horrible fear of what was about to change.

Nothing that stood in the way of his sureness, unfortunately.

“I will come back.” The taller god assured him. “I’ll prove they can change. I will save them.”

“Once you cross this gate, you will forget about us. You will think you are human.”

“Will you forget about me?” Hyungwon sincerely asked.

“No. But you won’t remember me.”

“I’ll find a way.” The raven-haired assured, still keeping a small distance between them. “I’ll hold my breath and jump, I’ll break my bones, but I will find a way to you again. Half of my soul, eternity isn’t going anywhere.”

Even with Hoseok’s protests, Hyungwon encircled his arms around him for a final see you soon, between what forever meant and the beginning of his struggles. His lips brushed against his lover’s forehead, unable to completely face him.

His steps towards the Golden Gates were as slow as possible, and Hyungwon got himself caught in the thoughts of everything that could go wrong in the choice he made; maybe the mortals weren’t capable to change or maybe he thought too highly of himself. What if it took eons for him to be reunited with his lover again?

What ifs, all that strangled his throat as he took a deep breath in.

As soon as Hyungwon set foot in-between two medium-sized white rocks, the Golden Gates spontaneously opened enough to allow a person to pass through it.

For one last goodbye, the raven-haired turned around to, with all his efforts, to engrave his lover’s face in his mind, but he was surprised by two strong arms pushing him through the gates — that touch, oh how he couldn’t forget, how he couldn’t be wrong about who they belonged to.

In the fall, what he loved the most became nothing but a poignant blur.

(“Hey, kid. Kid. Kid, kid!”

He bolted upright at the call of the man next to him, panting as if he had just run a marathon. His turtleneck was completely soaked in sweat, the cold kind of it that made him feel a shiver all through his body.

“Calm down.” In what was mostly darkness, a tanned man sat next to him — in bed, where he was — and brought a lamp closer to where they were, settling it over a small table. “You good?”

“I…” Cleaning the sweat of his hands in his jeans, he finally raised his gaze. “I guess.”

“You feeling any pain?”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Here.” Another voice, and another man stepped out of the dark. He was blond and slim, with a kind smile as he handed him a glass of water. “I’m Minhyuk.”

“Sorry. I’m Hyunwoo.” The first man apologized, lighting up more lamps that revealed more faces in the room. “Kihyun and I found you passed out on the street during our last round.”

Standing across from him, with a shoulder leaning on the entrance, was a brown-haired man with a brow raised at him.

“I’m Kihyun.” The man said, monitoring every move the man in bed made.

“I don’t remember anything.” He confessed, running a hand through his hair. Was it black or blond? He didn’t know. “I just woke up…”

“That doesn’t help your case, buddy.” A different man, with short blue hair, took a few steps in the bed’s direction with his hands under the pocket of his jeans.

“I swear. I’m not lying.”

“You sure you don’t remember anything?” At the back of the room, sitting cross-legged on top of an old table with a laptop in hands, the last of them finally questioned him. “Social security number? SNS? Your name?”

“My name?” What a foolish thing to think about. Everyone should be able to know it. But he…

Suddenly, a breeze crossed the back of his neck and a soft, honey-like voice whispered on his ear.

_Hyungwon…_

“Hyungwon.” With an unexplainable certainty, he went forward with it. “My name is Hyungwon.”

“Oooh, nice!” The cross-legged man nodded, typing something on his computer. “I’m Changkyun, by the way. Welcome to the end of the world.”

“It’s not the end.” In just one attempt, Hyungwon managed to get up on his feet, feeling some soreness run across his body. “It’s a new beginning.”

Kihyun was rather doubtful.

“How can you even know that?”

With a sheepish smile, Hyungwon glanced at the shorter man with so much confidence that it scared him a little.

“I just do. I just do.”)


	3. showkyun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> showkyun + my roommate is a ghost

**SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK**

Changkyun was pretty busy for someone who is actually dead.

During the day, also known as the time Hyunwoo wasn’t at home, he often wandered around the city in order to try to experience one more time whatever he had taken for granted before dying, not forgetting of all that he was taken from the privilege of experiencing with a death at such young age.

He was 21 when a tragic car accident took his life, or so that’s what he remembers — the noisy siren of an ambulance, glass shattered (glass still shattering), a myriad of voices overlapping over one another, his own heavy breath coming to an end… and that’s it.

After the darkness, Changkyun was suddenly standing next to his body in the hospital when he went into cardiac arrest and flatlined, officially kicked out of the world of the living.

To say that he felt sad wasn’t exactly true. Changkyun was dead, after all; the range of emotions he could achieve about that topic was way too broad, so he preferred to focus on the problem that was… when will the afterlife _thing_ was going to happen? A door, a bright light from heaven, a demon dragging him to hell, _anything_. To be forced to wander the planet for the rest of eternity alone scared him more than all of it.

It was in days like those that he was grateful to have a place to come back to. As usual, he yelled at the doorstep that he was coming in before passing right through the front door — classic ghost ability that Changkyun liked more than he’d admit.

The clock struck 7:00 p.m. and, at that time, the apartment is usually completely immersed in a coal black atmosphere before he’d turn the lights on to wait for his roommate to comeback. Not that night, though.

Changkyun found their living room’s lights already on, filled with colorful balloons and every type of cheesy decorations that teenage parties are made of, not even forgetting the red cups on the table and a big bowl of a questionable beverage.

What caught his attention, though, was finding his roommate wearing a grey suit combined with a lapis lazuli tie and brown shoes that Changkyun didn’t even know he owned that.

“Hyung?” Changkyun’s awkwardness hinted at him that he should chuckle, but he was too busy still staring at the decoration. “What—”

“Did you like it?” He asked, standing up from the couch. “I know it’s… uh… I just know from the movies…”

“Wait.” He gestured at him to stop. “What’s going on here exactly?”

“I wanted to throw you a party.” Hyunwoo sheepishly smiled. The stupid muscles of Changkyun’s face immediately mirrored him. “It’s an important party.”

“Oh…” The ghost nodded as if something had made sense to him, but it didn’t. “Important why?”

“I found it. You.”

It was the first time since he met Hyunwoo that the ghost saw him look so very damn… sad. Genuinely, deeply sad.

Changkyun didn’t think much when he was left to roam the world without knowing anything about himself except for his name, said at the hospital when they declared the time of his death — 11:14 p.m.

He soon found out that the only document they found with him when he died was his ID — not even a phone, for fuck’s sake.

Im Changkyun. That was him. Or at least who he was supposed to be.

He waited for days at the hospital for anyone to show and claim him, but nobody did. Was Changkyun such a loser that he had not a single soul in the world to miss him? What was he supposed to do now? There’s no afterlife guide book, if you’re wondering about it. There’s no explanation on why you were left behind while other ghosts, probably, went somewhere else, if that even existed.

So Changkyun made a plan.

Twice a day, for one year, he went back to the hospital to check if there was any news about his case. On his spare time, he’d spent either sightseeing or hanging around an empty apartment in a building in front of the hospital he had died on, that quickly gained the reputation of being haunted.

Changkyun was quite amused with that, he wasn’t going to deny it.

Until someday someone did move in; a tall, bronze-skinned first year resident that feared no spirit, or as he said to the building manager, “he didn’t have the time to worry about that”.

In less than a day, Changkyun learned that Hyunwoo, surgery resident, could not only see him, but didn’t really care to have him around as long as he didn’t disturb him while he was sleeping — rare opportunities for someone like him, and Changkyun understood.

A year of sharing an apartment passed way faster than the ghost could realize, and he actually grew fonder of his roommate and his hospital stories. It was like he was living a little bit through every tale that Hyunwoo told him as he got home, or before as the man passed out, if you prefer.

The only danger resided in the way Changkyun caught himself staring a bit longer at the man as he randomly fell asleep in the couch with a bunch of medical books on top of him, and sometimes — just sometimes — he’d let a tiny smile appear on his face like the moron he was.

God, Hyunwoo had no business in being so cute and hot at the same time.

Which brought him back to what unveiled in front of him at that moment.

“You found me?” Changkyun chuckled, strolling through the mess of balloons on the floor. “What does that mean—”

Oh.

_Oh_.

“Hyung…”

The tanned man tried to flash a smile at him, but even so, it seemed bittersweet.

“They were looking for you by your American name.” Hyunwoo tried to maintain eye contact. “They didn’t know you had taken your Korean ID already, so…”

“They looked for me by my American name.” The ghost finished it, with a nod that served more as a sign he was letting things sink in. “My… parents?”

“Yeah. They came to the hospital a few days ago.”

Changkyun’s forehead puckered.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…” Hyunwoo looked down and away, as if he was ashamed of himself. “I was being selfish. I… wanted one last thing.”

“What?” He kept on frowning. “What are you talking about? Where are my parents? Why—why—why? I want to see them, hyung.”

“You will, I promise. I just wanted to do something for you before you go.”

“A fucking party?” Changkyun almost shouted, but choked back a sob. “I don’t—”

“It’s…” Hyunwoo’s voice was small, but cut through the apartment quite well. “You said you only had one memory from before the accident and, uh, it was you being homeschooled… so, uh… uh…”

“You made _prom_ for me?”

“Yeah.”

Inside Changkyun’s mind was a convoluted mess of thoughts and doubts, but what broke down inside of him was the heaviness of his chest that made him uncertain about anything he was about to do or say, so he decided to trust the person who had been by his side when Changkyun thought he was all alone in this world, who never judged him or asked questions about where he was from.

“Alright.” The ghost wheezed, pushing aside the last balloons between him and Hyunwoo. “Do your best, pretty boy.”

God, Changkyun wasn’t ready to see that huge man blushing like a school girl. His dead stomach butterflies weren’t so dead after all.

Hyunwoo unfroze and turned off the lights only to turn on a fucking disco ball in the middle of their living room, which had Changkyun on the floor laughing his ass off.

“Come on…” Hyunwoo whined as the strobe lights danced around the room.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Standing on his feet, he now watched his hyung scrolling through his phone until he finally picked a song and laid it on the coffee table.

Oh my, it was a slow, extra sweet love song.

“You can’t touch me for a long time.” Changkyun carelessly told him, cringing at himself one second later. “This sounded better in my head.”

Hyunwoo snorted.

“We still can try.” The taller male said, extending his hand towards the ghost.

“Did you get me a corsage or something?”

“Oh. I… I’m sorry, Changkyun-ah. I forgot it.”

“I’m kidding, oh my God.” He didn’t want to make the man feel bad, especially because he looked even cuter with a little pout in his mouth. “Let’s dance before the song is over.”

“Oh.” A brighter tone now, combined with a shy smile. “Okay.”

Changkyun moved first, carefully interlacing their fingers and hoping with all the faith he still had that he could physically touch him. To see how Hyunwoo’s small eyes widen as the palms of their hands indeed connected was the strongest emotion that his dead self ever felt in a long time.

“You’re stiff.” The ghost joked, as they swayed slowly.

Hyunwoo took that as an incentive to do better and wrapped his arm around Changkyun’s waist, bring him closer than they even had been with each other.

Dead people can’t blush, thank God.

Almost naturally, Changkyun’s free arm encircled his roommate’s neck and now felt like they were really dancing.

He knew what that was about, though.

“This is a nice goodbye party, hyung.”

The taller man frowned.

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“It’s the truth, though. It’s likely I’ll disappear once I see my parents, am I right?”

Hyunwoo’s sour expression said it all.

“You have to move on.” The elder said, as they could tell the song they were dancing to was coming to an end. “Wishing you’d stay is selfish.”

“I wish you were more selfish.”

“Changkyun, I know—”

The last thing Changkyun needed right now, as the last notes of the song echoed through their living room, was some sort of apology/pity-party ruining their moment, so he grabbed Hyunwoo by the collar of his suit and crashed his lips against the man’s and, goddamn, _goddamn_, maybe that was a fucking brilliant idea.

Short-lived, if you allow Changkyun to make such pun. But, during all those months they spent together, that was the moment he felt it was the closest to being alive again.

His roommate’s small eyes were huge when Changkyun pulled away, staring down at him as if the ghost had three heads.

“I hope you felt that.” Changkyun muttered, face still close enough to Hyunwoo’s to feel the man’s hot breath on his ghost face.

What was there to be said that they haven’t said to each other during that entire year? Words now would lack sincerity, and words always needed to mean something to Changkyun. When alive, he never smiled when he didn’t want to, nor feigned any emotion that didn’t come from his heart. Now, dead, he wouldn’t change it.

Hyunwoo stood there looking at him like he was watching Changkyun’s entire life pass in front of his eyes, like he knew what kind of responsibility Changkyun had to bear.

“They’re staying at that hotel at the end of the street. Room 126.”

Mustering all the strength he still had in his ghost body, Changkyun turned his back to the only person that ever understood him at all, even if such thing was only able to happen after he died.

The faster he left, the faster he’d have his dead heart broken and would be able to put an end to whatever made him want to die again for leaving Hyunwoo behind.

“I’ll look for you.” He heard Hyunwoo’s voice, all of a sudden. “When I leave this world… I’ll look for you. Wait for me to find you.”

Looking over his shoulder, Changkyun peaked at the man with a bittersweet smile.

“If we are destined to find each other, we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> you can find me on twitter at [@soloisthyungwon](https://twitter.com/soloisthyungwon/) <3


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